30 May – 27 July
Among the guests: Tazenda, Le Orme, Moni Ovadia, Joachim Cooder, Allan Taylor, 99 Posse, Giua & Riccardo Tesi
The lines of the 47th edition of Folkest have been defined, and this year too it presents itself with an adage that clearly paints its features: a festival curious about the world. It opens on 30th May with a concert dedicated to the music of David Crosby, in collaboration with Guitar International, in Cervignano del Friuli. This is followed by the traditional La Fieste da Sedon, the festival of Friulian folk musicians, on 1st June at Ragogna Castle; on 8th June the friends of the Cantina Tavagnacco, in collaboration with the Cooperativa Itaca, return. This year’s event will feature the Cinque uomini sulla cassa del morto and the Capitano tutti a noi. On 12th June, the section of Folkest in its Local Area kicks off, enlivening throughout June, with a few offshoots in July, the territories of Friuli Venezia Giulia with music and encounters with national and international personalities. Then, from 3rd to 6th July, there are the eagerly awaited San Daniele Days with great guests, seminars, and the Folkest Showcases, in collaboration with UpBeat, with artists from all over Europe, meetings with sector operators with the Speed Meetings, the finals of the Cesa Prize, and for the second year running, there is the Prize named after the prematurely deceased Lorenzo Marchiori, dedicated to a book on a musical subject.
And then space for music documentaries, workshops and Treasures from the Rai Archives with Elisabetta Malantrucco and Marco Salvadori. And the festival’s lifelong friends who will speak in the workshops and presentations: Elena Ledda, Felice Liperi, Duccio Pasqua, Elisabetta Malantrucco and Martina Vocci. The big events with Folkest in Udine, during which the Folkest-a life for music award will be presented in July, are not to be missed. There will be numerous guests at the Festival: it gets off to a great start on 30th May with the Tribute to David Crosby (with Jeff Pevar & Inger Nova, Jackie Perkins and the best Italian country musicians). There will be a double date this year with Tazenda: on 14th June in Tolmezzo in acoustic; and on 27th June, together with Felice Liperi, in Romans d’Isonzo for the presentation – in words and music – of S’Istoria infinida, the biography soon to be published by Il Castello. On 29th June, on the other hand, it will be the turn of the legendary Orme, who celebrate sixty years of their musical career this year. Not to be missed is the event in Clauzetto with Michele Gazich and Giovanna Famulari and then, from 3rd July, the San Daniele events, which open with the national premiere of Yiddish Blues by and with Moni Ovadia with Michele Gazich and Giovanna Famulari. Also in San Daniele, great expectations on 5th July for Joachim Cooder, American percussionist and multi-instrumentalist, son of the giant Ry Cooder.
Another collaboration, within the Sandanielese days, for the concert of Slovenian KiKi with the Nei suoni dei luoghi festival. Music returns in collaboration with Palchi nei Parchi on 11th July in Cividale del Friuli with the great Allan Taylor (England), with Lino Straulino. Two great guests crown the summer in Udine: 99 Posse on 21th July and Giua & Riccardo Tesi on 27th July. The partnership with UpBeat, the European Union platform created by a network made up of the fourteen most important continental showcase festivals, is back, thanks to which the days of Folkest in San Daniele will be enlivened by musicians from all over Europe, as well as by sector operators, producers, directors of other festivals and journalists. A meeting of sounds that is enriched by the proposal of the Alberto Cesa Award, six groups and individual artists from all over Italy already selected during the live evenings in Arezzo (Zerofolk Duo), in Cervasca (Stefano Turolla Trio), in Loano (Pasticcio Meticcio), in Codroipo (Urtie), in Rome Massimiliano Felice and Arbizzano (Fan Chaabi). All the groups are then asked to set to music a poem by Federico Tavan, thanks to a collaboration with Morganti Editori.
A graphic treatment by the Festival’s image manager Michela Paladini was chosen for this year’s image: an explosion of colour and rhythm. The background, vibrant and bright, tells of the primordial energy of a music that comes from the origins, from the beating of hearts, made up of encounters, cultures, rhythm and passion. The colours intertwine like voices, building a warm and welcoming atmosphere. In the centre, an illustration brings together some of the instruments of the folk world, not mere objects, but symbols of stories, of journeys, of identity. Every line vibrates, every shape sings. Ultimately a hymn to life: powerful, pulsating and free. And an invitation to let yourself be crossed by the sound, to feel its strength, to be part of it.
Folkest, under the artistic direction of Andrea Del Favero, is realised by the Associazione Culturale Folkgiornale ETS, thanks to the support of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Friuli Foundation, the municipalities of San Daniele del Friuli and Udine, Banca 360 and the local authorities of the more than thirty municipalities in Friuli Venezia Giulia involved, Abaco Viaggi, Cantina Tavagnacco, Cooperativa Itaca.
Folkest in the territory
The journey through the municipalities of Friuli Venezia Giulia will touch on: Gemona del Friuli, Cividale, Cervignano, Pordenone, Campoformido, Vito d’Asio, Tolmezzo, Tramonti di sopra, Basaldella di Vivaro, Gorizia, Costa (Castelnovo del Friuli), Artegna, Musi (Lusevera), San Rocco (Forgaria nel Friuli), Venzone, Corno di Rosazzo, Fiumicello (Fiumicello Villa Vicentina), San Giovanni d’Antro (Pulfero), Ronchi dei Legionari, Romans d’Isonzo, Arta Terme, Palmanova, Stevenà di Caneva, Clauzetto. And Udine. Among the artists present: From Italy Uttern, UTGANDHI solo PROJECT, The Bluegrass Baby, To loo loose, Capitano tutte e a noi, Alessandro Sipolo, Michele Gazich and Giovanna Famulari, the Apulian A3 Apulia Project and from Calabria Senduki. And international artists Lidiya Koycheva & Balkan Orkestra from Bulgaria, Matching Ties & Obrannlaig Rinceoir Dancers from the United States, England and Germany, Miguel Angel & Lautaro Acosta from Argentina, Phønix from Denmark, Mulu’s Trio from Ireland and Balkalar from Croatia.
Cesa Prize
The competition, named after the great Piedmontese musician, is now in its 21st edition and has collected over 150 applications from all over Italy. Six artists won the pass for the Folkest 2025 stage, after live selections: in Arezzo the Zerofolk Duo won, while in Cervasca the prize went to the Stefano Turolla Trio. In Loano, Pasticcio Meticcio won, while in Codroipo, Urtie stood out. In Rome, Massimiliano Felice and his band triumphed, while in Arbizzano victory went to Fan Chaabi. All six winners will take the stage at Folkest 2025 in San Daniele del Friuli, bringing their music and their personal journey between tradition and innovation before the audience of the famous festival.
This year, as last year, the finalist groups will be asked to set to music, sing and arrange a text in the Friulian language by the poet Federico Tavan di Andreis, an artistically outstanding figure, the highest voice of Friulian literature in the second half of the 20th century after Pier Paolo Pasolini. This stimulating cultural challenge has been realised in close collaboration with Morganti Editori, the publishing house that manages the rights of this great poet. The first classified will receive the Nuovo Imaie Prize and will be invited to perform at Folkest 2026 and at the Ethnos 2026 festival in Campania. While the second and third place winners will be invited to two of the Folkest evenings on the territory 2026. Once again this year, the Alberto Cesa Prize will be supported by the Nuovo Imaie.
Folkest Showcase
That is, the new European artistic proposals that Folkest will be proposing to the public and numerous international delegates, bringing their music to places of great history and charm in San Daniele: from Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II to the church of Santa Maria della Fratta, passing through the church of Sant’Antonio Abate and the Terrazza della Fratta.
In addition to the Italians Darbar Mantra, La Peka and the Friulians Crotz ta Palûd, they are joined by Kiki from Slovenia, Lyre’n’Rhapsody from Greece, Nora Gharyéni from Tunisia, Hraybery from Poland and Asteria from Portugal.
The seminars
Musica in movimento – Danzare Trad at Folkest 2024, the heart of Folkest’s training offer, will feature the LarreAlde Band from the Basque Country (French side) with Basque dances and La Paranza Mediterranea with Campanian dances. They will be held in the marquee on the Fratta terrace. The Music for Musicians section will feature the customary appointment dedicated to Mediterranean vocality with Elena Ledda, one of the most significant voices of world music in Italy and Europe.
Space was also given to the Seventh Art with no less than two film contributions: the first, shot by Patrik Larralde and financed by the French Ministry of Culture, is dedicated to the ethnic minorities of Mitteleuropa and was largely filmed in San Daniele. The second one is about women, the women of Casso and a story of ordinary people who resist and continue with great efforts to keep a village alive: conceived by Giuseppina Casarin and filmed by Maurizio Callegaro, Il mio canto è memoria was produced by the Gottardo Tomat Music Association and the Friuli Philological Society. The rediscovery of the treasures of the RAI thecas continues thanks to the passionate work conducted by Elisabetta Malantrucco of RAI Techetè, who will dialogue with Marco Salvadori, president of the Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini in Casarsa, and with Claudio Agostoni of Radio Popolare in Milan on a number of issues related to Pasolini, of whom some little-known or not at all known gems from the RAI archives will also be played.
Finally, Valentina Zanelli will propose an online path through a dedicated app, during which a series of topics expressly dedicated to musicians will be covered: Writing and submitting a project to access funding programs (artistic residencies, travel, new productions); Selling through email (creating a sales email, how to structure and use an email database, tracking and sending tools); Online presence (importance, building, constant growth); The show and the showcase (differences between B2B and B2C performance. How to get the best out of both situations); Copyright and related rights.
This important section of the festival represents an educational moment that is not born and dies in these days alone, but also comes as the concluding moment of a collaboration between several significant territorial realities in the field of promoting folk instrumental techniques, from Folkest to the Gottardo Tomat Association of Spilimbergo, the Furclap Association of Udine, and the da Glauco group – academiute di musiche e culture popolâr.
Odmevi/ Echoes: Cultivating the popular to populate the cultured
Kicking off from San Giovanni d’Antro, and then unraveling in mid-August, will be the third edition of a musical project born out of the collaboration between the Sergio Gaggia Association of Cividale and Folkest, in which the two associations take on the fascinating challenge of a combined musical journey between classical and popular, with a view to broadening the audience and its education, as the subtitle declares: Cultivating the popular to populate the cultured. An initiative that also aims at a tourist recovery of the valleys of Slavia Friulana, as a corollary to the events of Go! 2025 Nova Gorica and Gorizia European Capital of Culture 2025, in which this area may in turn become an emblematic symbol of an arbitrarily divided homogeneous territory. In addition to its symbolic significance, potential benefits in cross-border relations and tourist effects, the project also offers – in its exquisitely musical part – a tasty, programmatic bounce between the popular and the cultured worlds, an unprecedented avenue only occasionally visited by festivals and concert seasons.
A green vision
Proper use of resources and an effective fight against energy waste has always been among Folkest’s stated goals. In recent years, this requirement has taken significant momentum, aided in part by participation in the UpBeat project and numerous operational meetings with all the other festivals participating in the project. In addition to various other actions (recyclable plates and cutlery, water bottles, hybrid cars, etc…) from this year Folkest boasts a totally battery-operated sound and lighting system. The outdoor system, monitors, lights, mixer… everything will be battery-operated, a great little revolution that was absolutely unthinkable even just three years ago. State-of-the-art equipment exclusively for the Friulian festival, which once again proves itself capable of always putting itself one step ahead.